More Like Her
by Lady Shaye
Summary: He was kissing her behind closed doors. / My interpretation of a secret hidden romance between Lisbon and Bosco. And a little bit of Jisbon thrown in, just for my own pleasure. Inspired by Miranda Lambert's "More Like Her." Re-posted.


A/N: Okay. I'm really mad about this one. Because I worked really long and really hard over this one, and somebody had the gall to delete it. Or maybe I did it by accident, I don't know, I'm not accusing anybody or anything. All I know is that I'm literally seeing red over this because for a long time this was my proudest work. Yes, I realize it's based off of the song by a country singer, and maybe it's a little messy, but I thought I really got into this one and it made me happy, even though it seemed like nobody really loved it. So I'm reuploading this, and if you don't like it, don't read it. I don't mean to antagonize anybody, but really. I worked long and hard over this one for weeks. So. I hope you like it, and if you don't, _please_ don't delete it.

Disclaimer: If I owned The Mentalist...oh, well, crap, I'll just say it: Simon Baker would be shirtless. All. The. Time. :)

* * *

_She's beautiful in her simple little way_

_She don't have too much to say when she gets mad_

Mandy Bosco was a beautiful woman, in her own way. She and Sam Bosco had been perfectly suited from the start. Their wedding was beautiful and simple, yet elegant. Really traditional. She'd worn a long white dress and they'd gotten married in front of God and every person they'd ever known longer than five minutes. They vacationed in Paris, for Christ's sakes. Mandy was a traditional woman, who wanted marriage and babies and a loving husband. And she'd gotten all that.

But she also knew how to keep her temper. She knew that her husband had a long, draining job that demanded many hours of his time and often left her lonely at nights.

Lisbon had never been that patient, and she was used to yelling when she was angry.

And she'd never had that quiet, simple but noticeable beauty that Mandy had.

_She understands, she don't let go of anything_

_Even when the pain gets really bad_

Even when her husband was cheating on her with Lisbon, Mandy was kind to Lisbon. She hadn't resented Sam or even demanded a divorce. She had continued to love him, and Lisbon knew that Mandy had prayed for their marriage to be restored. And it had, with the birth of their child.

_I guess I should've been more like that._

Lisbon gave up far too easy, in her own opinion. She gave up on her own brother when he got into drugs. She gave up on her father when he turned to alcohol. She often gave up on Jane now whenever Red John was mentioned.

And several years ago, back in San Francisco, she gave up on Samuel Bosco when he had a child with his wife. Their affair was over, and she turned in her resignation soon after, already packing for California.

She had never been as good as Mandy anyway, not to the man she loved. He was always on both sides. He loved Mandy too much to leave her and he loved Lisbon too much to let her go, although it would have been a lot less heartache in it for all of them if he had done one of the two. So Lisbon had to make the decision for herself.

_You had it all for a pretty little while_

_And somehow you made me smile when I was sad_

Yet their relationship had been beautiful. It had been secret, of course, and only a few stolen kisses most of the time. All they had was post-case coffees and a few secret meetings in the supply closet of the San Francisco office. Sometimes they would meet at parties and find themselves hungrily kissing in an empty room, hoping to God that nobody would open the door because the stupid lock was broken.

And then he would go home to his loving wife and have sex with _her_. And fall asleep with _her_.

And it wasn't fair. Lisbon liked Mandy, for God's sake. They got along. But Sam's feelings for her—and her feelings for him—were tearing so many relationships apart.

Yet still he made her smile so much. She would smile as his lips pressed upon hers, and then he would start grinning too, all cocky and happy, because he had the best of both worlds. And because he knew that she loved him, and that she was hooked just as much as he was.

_You took a chance on a bruised and beaten heart_

_And then you realized you wanted what you had_

He had known she was damaged goods. He had read her file while they were working together, and he knew about her bloody past. The fact that she had been in the car with her mother when she'd died. The fact that her father had nearly blown up their house while she and the boys were still in it and that she'd tried to talk him down but had eventually given up and rushed the boys out of the house to keep them safe. The fact that she had never married, never gotten engaged, never even had a relationship that lasted an entire year or more. The fact that she wasn't good at commitment, or trust.

But still he'd taken a chance on her. Granted, it was an affair, and it was wrong—God, it had been _so_ wrong—but it had been so nice for someone to take a chance on her. Having somebody take a chance on her (Bosco, especially) was so…heartwarming. Like, for once in her life, she maybe deserved it.

Then he realized that he wanted his wife. The second that Mandy had told him that she was pregnant, Lisbon knew he was already gone from her life. Sure, Bosco still loved her, but Mandy was his wife. And hadn't she always respected him—always loved him, fine—because he was so damn honorable? It was like she was begging for it.

Three days later, she handed in her notice.

_I guess I should've been more like that._

Lisbon never knew what she wanted. She loved Sam but she pushed him away, she begged him to divorce Mandy but also wanted them to stay together (so _she_ wouldn't have to make the decision to leave him, because God knew she sucked at relationships and, no matter how much she loved him, it just wouldn't work, it couldn't), and now she needed Jane now more than ever but still she didn't go to him. She couldn't. Because he still wore that wedding ring, and just like with Sam, it was the one thing that held her back. (It hadn't even held her back from Sam for that long. So how long could it hold her back from Jane, huh? Right. Not very long.)

She and Sam were very alike, as was she and Jane. All three of them found it hard to trust and hard to make decisions. Jane, of course, never showed his insecurities and never made his hesitancy clear. His uncertainty was so well-hidden, but she knew it was there. She knew because they were connected in a way that she and Sam had been attached so long ago—and in a way, still were.

_I should have held on to my pride, I should have never let you lie_

_I guess you got what you deserved; I guess I should've been more like her._

And in a way, she regretted her relationship with Sam. It had been so bad, so cruel, to hurt Mandy like that, and at the same time, they were just hurting themselves too, as well as the whole entire team in San Francisco. She should've never been with him, she should've never had him lie to the woman he promised to love and cherish forever, while he was secretly loving her behind closed doors.

In the end, he'd stayed with Mandy, of course. He hadn't followed her to California for a long time, and she found even then that his efforts were halfhearted and most were miserable failures. He no longer took her to post-case coffees, and they never went to same parties anymore. He stayed with his wife and never left Mandy's bed for hers, and in a way it was morally right and emotionally wrong.

There were times that she wished that she were Mandy, if only so she could know what it felt like to wear Sam Bosco's wedding ring on her finger, to wake up laced and tangled in the bedsheets with him, to raise his child and call it her own, to hold his hand on his deathbed and not feel _so incredibly wrong_ like she had when she'd been actually forced to do it because of a missed flight and a persistent consultant. She'd wished to know what it felt like to love him without crying, to wish him well without tears bursting from her eyes without permission.

But Teresa Lisbon always wished for the wrong things, to the things she never got and almost certainly never deserved, in her own opinion, and just like so many others, that was a wish that never came true. She could never be as good as Mandy Bosco.

_Forgiving you, she's stronger than I am_

_You don't look much like a man from where I'm at_

One of the best things about Mandy Bosco, she'd discovered: Mandy never let jealousy or anger get in the way. When she was Lisbon had first met after the—well, affair was the simplest, best word to use to describe it, so she'd just go on out and say it—affair, Mandy was cordial and polite and even sweet.

And of course she'd plainly forgiven Bosco. She'd have had to have been a fool not to see that he and Lisbon displayed that affair-related tension around her—around everywhere they went, really, which was why she only stayed a few weeks, until Mandy's public pregnancy announcement, even though Bosco had told her beforehand and practically ruined it with only a few words—and Mandy Bosco was no fool.

Yet she'd forgiven him for lying to her, when Teresa couldn't even forgive him for not loving her enough.

_It's plain to see, desperation's shown its truth_

_You love her and she loves you and all she has_

When the time came and Sam privately said he was having a kiddo of his own with Mandy, it was all that Lisbon could do to pick up the phone and just say congrats. _Congratulations_, like it was no big deal, like her world wasn't going to fall apart even though she knew it just was. It had to. Sam was just that kind of guy. If he got a girl pregnant, he would do everything for her, she simply knew it, and just like that, with no words spoken, their affair was over, ended. She went to work the next day and avoided his eyes and tackled a man twice her size. It was like hell had decided to personally come knock on her door and give itself to her. And being given hell was never fun.

She attended the party thrown in honor of the upcoming child and noted the little light kisses Sam feathered over Mandy's neck when he thought she wasn't looking.

And that had stabbed deeper than the baby's announcement.

In his desperation to keep the wife he'd promised to love forever and always—_like he hadn't sworn the same behind closed doors, and he _had, _trailing kisses down her throat, unbuttoning her blouse, making her moan and cry with happiness_—and he'd made himself fall all over in love with her again.

And Mandy still loved him. Of course she did. They were the perfect couple, the cop and his patient wife. They made it through everything, the golden couple always did—time-draining jobs, pregnancies, even affairs.

What hurt was that Sam had never even said he was sorry. And of course it always hurt that she'd never fallen completely out of love with him.

_I guess I should've been more like that._

Lisbon often wondered about what would have happened if she had gotten pregnant instead of Mandy. Sam would have apologized profusely, and then she would have told him that it was fine and that she would be okay and that he needed to get home to Mandy, and then he would have given her money and told her to please feel free to ask him for anything, that he wanted to be responsible for this child, and she would have sent him home.

Maybe he would've divorced Mandy. But there is a very clear between maybe and absolutely. And Sam had never been very good at picking the latter.

_I should have held on to my pride, I should have never let you lie_

_I guess you got what you deserved; I guess I should've been more like her._

She should never have fallen in love with him. She should have never fallen in love with a married man.

Lisbon sat in her office, looking at the picture of Bosco that she kept on her desk in remembrance, twisting the emerald ring he'd given her for one birthday during their affair, the one that she kept on her left index finger. Then she peered outside and saw the top of Jane's curly mop of blond hair. She suppressed a small, wistful smile. Yes, she had the habit of falling in love with men who were still in love with their wives.

_She's beautiful, in her simple little way._

Of course, Angela Ruskin Jane had been drop-dead gorgeous, not to mention the first love of his life, so she couldn't really blame him.

And she still couldn't look Mandy Bosco in the eyes without feeling regretful.

Sighing, she turned away from Jane and went back to dealing with the paperwork he'd caused over his latest run-in with the mayor's niece, who didn't take very kindly to being accused of theft. She suppressed a small smile over the description of the bloody nose he'd been given by the fifteen-year-old girl.

Then she rose to look up at him. Their eyes met briefly through the office door's window, eyes interlocking with dark green upon deep blue, and he glanced away first, guiltily twisting his wedding ring.

She looked away.

* * *

A/N: So. It's the same as it was before. I hope it gets good reception. Really all that I care about is that it stays up, because even if one person doesn't like it, then that doesn't mean that someone else won't. And I realize that I'm being kind of annoying and mean about this, but I've been up for the past forty-eight hours straight with absolutely no sleep, and I jsut discovered that this fic got deleted who knows how long ago, and I have a million more things to do before the end of the day. So please be considerate to me.

Review? The nice little button there gets lonely sometimes.


End file.
